St. Mary's Bazaar

Last Saturday I had a chance to get more experience at St. Mary's. Me and some of my classmates helped out at a fund raiser at St. Mary's. Dan and I ran a basketball, and football station. The kids gave us blue tickets to play, and if they won we rewarded them with red tickets(which could be used for prizes). When we got there it was very slow, most of the kids had already played all the games and used all their tickets. I wish I got their earlier when their was more people there, but overall it was a lot of fun. I saw some of the kids from lab and they were very happy to see us and play our games. When the fund raiser was over we helped clean up and put stuff away. I really enjoyed the fundraiser and I wish I worked there for longer.   

Thanksgiving lab 5

Lab 5 was a very fun learning experience.  This week I was in the Gym group which meant that I had to teach my game in front of all my peers and Professor Yang. Right from the start of lab we had to deal with some adversary. The St. Mary's basketball team had practice after school which left us with only half of the gym. After this the 2nd graders were supposed to get half of our half. So when it was our turn to teach we only had a quarter of the gym. This is something that PE teachers have to deal with on a regular basis. The game I taught was Thanksgiving treasure hunt. I put pictures of turkeys, Pilgrims, and Native Americans under poly spots. Then I put Three posters up in different areas of the gym. The pictures on the poster board matched the pictures under the poly spot. When I said Go the kids were to run around the gym. Once I said find the treasure the kids were to dribble 10 times on the poly spot, look underneath the poly spot and then take the treasure to the matching poster. The game went really well and the kids enjoyed the game. The posters and pictures really got the kids attention and kept them entertained. If we had music it would have made the game a lot better but I still think that it went good. It just makes it easier to use music as a cue to start activity. I forgot to bring a Ipod so I had to use my voice to cue the kids when to start and finish activity.  

Thanksgiving Lab 2 make up lab.

On Monday I had to make up St. Mary's lab. I was injured when the lab took place and was unable to attend do to my ankle injury. This lab was one of the funnest ones yet. Lab started out with the gym group doing there games while we studied one students movement skills. The gym group did a great job, there were over 30 kids in the group and they really kept them entertained for the whole time. The kids loved the thanksgiving theme and were very excited to play our games. after this I went to work with the Pre-K group. It was a very nice day out so all the kids were very happy to play outside. We played random games with the kids. After playing outside we went inside were the kids ate a snack. Once inside Becky red the kids a nice book about thanksgiving. While she was entertaining the kids, Me and Andrew set up his activity. His game involved a boat (the mayflower) and land (Plymouth rock). The kids were to use the scooters to get from the boat to the rock and once they were there they were to dribble a basketball over to the side. There they would grab a piece of food and carry over to the table. It was a very fun activity for the Pre-k. I think all the kids really enjoyed there games. 

The importance of creating a safe environment and appropriate task.

Teachers can control two things when teaching. They can control the task and the environment. The environment should be safe and appropriate for learning. The task should put all the students in the best situation to learn. This week I was planning on teaching a relay race at St. Mary's. I always saw it as a fun cardiovascular activity as a kid. But I never really noticed all of the flaws with it until this week. One thing I didn't like about it was how it was a race. I didn't want the kids to get down on themselves if their group didn't win. Relay races really single kids out and put kids in a negative environment. I almost learned the hard way how important it is to have a task that will create a positive learning experience.
Another aspect of teaching that is important is to always being positive. If you have a injury or are just having a bad day, it is important that you don't take it out on the kids. So many of my teachers in High School would be in bad moods and just take it out on us as students. It is not fair for the kids, they shouldn't get in trouble and not be in a positive environment just because you are having a bad day. I hated High School PE and High School in general because of this. Some teachers would let there mood get in the way of teaching. I see it in college but not as much. I think teacher should always leave their personally problems separate from class. I had a personal experience with this; I recently broke my ankle and had a hard time moving around. This made it difficult to teach games at St. Mary's, but I had to overcome this and make it seem like everything was good. I had to smile, show enthusiasm and almost put on the front that my ankle was fine and that I could demonstrate enough of the game for the kids to understand. It just something teachers have to do, they have to always make a positive learning environment for the students.

St.Mary's Slide Show

St. Mary's Collage

Thank You St. Mary's!